February 19: Daughter, Milestones, "Praise for Waiting"

Tonight, I turn to a poem I wrote a long time ago, when my daughter would still let me sing to her at night before she fell asleep.

I just attended my daughter's last dance open house, after twelve years of dance open houses.  In a few months, she will be walking across the gymnasium floor in her cap and gown.  I want time to slow down.  Getting a little tired of encountering milestones every day.  I thought it was bad enough when my daughter got her braces taken off.

Saint Marty isn't ready to be the father of a high school graduate.

Praise for Waiting

by:  Martin Achatz

I scribble these lines in my journal

As I wait for my daughter’s ballet

Class to end, her to come out of the studio,

Flushed from grand jeté, allegro, pirouette.

I treasure these moments of waiting

At the end of the day, in my car,

Radio silent, evening creeping into air

Like frost on a kitchen window, delicate

Fingers of cold and dark.  This moment,

Suspended between dinner and sleep,

Seems timeless, the way pictures of Garbo

Seem timeless, black-and-white, eyes

Focused upward, as if some lover

Hovers above her, waiting to press

His lips to hers, taste her meter, rhythm,

Sonnet of skin, snowdrift body.

Words cannot, will not touch these long

Seconds, no verb or adjective coax

Onto page the pure pleasure of possibility,

Reaching out like an unwritten poem.

I close my eyes, understand why Garbo

Flickered out when she did, left the world

Waiting for one last word, one last glimpse.

A snapshot.  My daughter caught mid-leap,

Waiting, as we all do, to descend.